Thuglit and Neo-Noir Short Fiction

Around a decade ago, the front cover of this book caught my attention on Amazon.

I know you should never judge a book by its cover, but I couldn’t help myself. It was brash and I purchased the book for my Kindle and began reading.

The self-publishing world has introduced the masses to a variety of different niches and subgenres. While neo-noir has been around for decades, I had never experienced it in a written format before. The book, Maybe I Just Shoot Your in the Face was just one of many collections that were circulating at that time (and still do) that featured up-and-coming writers talking about the darker, shadier side of life.

These gritty, downbeat and graphically violent stories offer readers something you didn’t see on cable television or even at your local cinema. Free of the restrictions of censorship and rating boards, these stories feel raw and almost dirty at times, as they explore good people falling into bad lifestyles and bad people trying to survive bad lifestyles and everything in-between.

The gold standard of these collections was called Thuglit, which began in 2005 and ran until 2016. This expertly curated collection of stories was a real treat to experience when it was in existence. I won’t recap the history of Thuglit, since CrimeReads did an amazing job last year with In Memory of Thuglit, The Lit Mag You Should Have Read, but if you are wondering about the pedigree of Thuglit, popular crime author S.A. Cosby got his start writing for the magazine.

Personally, short fiction was never something I appreciated until I began devouring issues of Thuglit. I found the power that could come in skipping the BS and getting straight to the action. By cutting through the nonsense, it allowed for the readers to spend less time with the characters in these stories, but I personally feel like it allowed for them to make more of an impression. You didn’t watch a character slowly build up to making a horrific mistake, you were thrown right into it as he’s bleeding out and trying to make sense of what happened.

One of my favorite parts of exploring these collections is finding new authors to explore. For example, after reading Fast Women and Neon Lights: Eighties-Inspired Neon Noir which was edited by Michael Pool, I read his books Debt Crusher and New Alleys for Nothing Men which I really enjoyed. After reading several stories by Eryk Pruitt, I realized he lived near me and I was able to attend a presentation he gave in nearby Chapel Hill about writing neo-noir.

I go through waves where I read a ton of these stories, and then I back off for a bit. They can be a little taxing, because they truly deal with the scum of the Earth a lot of the time, or at least, the more unsavory parts of life. However, there is truth is not putting on a show or trying to pretend everything is neat and clean and I appreciate that. It’s the honesty that brings me back to reading neo-noir and its definitely a sub-genre I love.

Recently, I began re-reading through Thuglit as well as Maybe I Should Just Shoot You in the Face and while not every story is a homerun, it’s a great little way to take a break from life and experience something unique and different.